A carding system for smokers and other laughable proposals

What’s this? Ontario should crank up the cost of cigarettes, raise the smoking age to 21 and rate movies 18A if someone dares smoke onscreen, according to a new report.

“It has taken far too long to stop a problem that we know how to solve,” says the report, commissioned by the Ministry of Health and Long-term Care.

It’s a document so outlandish, it’s almost satirical. Honestly, have the anti-smokers got nothing new?

Many of the solutions that may work to achieve the goal of practically wiping out smoking — a “tobacco endgame” in the parlance of the anti-smoking industry — simply cannot, and must not, be tolerated in a free society.

For example, the report says e-cigarettes should only be sold to those who already smoke. That’s tricky to enforce, the experts in the report sagely note. So “the ministry could explore options such as a card system for people who smoke or making these products available only by prescription,” they say.

A registry for smokers? It’s a patently absurd idea. Or the suggestion to make all postsecondary campuses smoke-free; those people are adults, folks. Or to raise the smoking age to 21. People are smart enough to vote but not smart enough to decide which substances they want to put in their bodies?

The reality is, around 18 per cent of Canadians still smoke, defying decades of science, and browbeating by government, family and doctors. Yes, it would be good if fewer people smoked. But honestly, the best minds in public health are surely able to come up with less maddening ideas than these.

“The status quo is not an option,” the report notes gravely. It is, for what it’s worth, absolutely an option. But assuming it isn’t, the solutions seem awfully status quo, don’t they? The government clamps down even harder on the tobacco industry, squeezing smokers for more of their money, while the government continues to profit fantastically from the very system it decries. Same old, same old.

At this point, the anti-smoking battle is careening wildly towards the absurd.

The report refers to “inexpensive tobacco at just about every corner,” which is a laughable interpretation of the word “inexpensive.” A pack of decent smokes costs somewhere around $12. I don’t know how much money the authors earn, but that’s not what I’d call cheap.

But guess what drives smokers to illegal smokes? Hint: the price. The report’s solution to that problem is to “significantly increase” how much is spent on the war on contraband tobacco, looking approvingly at Quebec, which spends $18 million a year. Here’s another bad idea: allowing landlords to evict people who break a no-smoking lease provision. Righto, more people scrambling to find housing. Well done, chaps.

Look, some of these policy pitches are halfway decent. Having the health system cover the cost of smoking cessation (a pack of Nicorette is around $50) would eliminate a barrier to quitting. Recognizing that getting people to quit means targeting specific populations, such as gay and bisexual men, or Indigenous people or those with mental illness, allows for decent policy, because they smoke at shocking rates, compared to th e overall population.

Of course, much of what’s presented here isn’t decent policy. It’s controlling nanny-statism, a hodgepodge of uninspired and aging ideas that, really, are just biding time until a government gets up the nerve to criminalize tobacco.

As we race towards marijuana legalization — hip stuff, even the prime minister has smoked it! — we’re making life ever more difficult for tobacco smokers. This irony is lost on politicians, though the report suggests tobacco control tactics could be used against pot to reduce harms.

Gosh. In that case, why even legalize it? We’ll be right back in the same place in 40 years with that attitude. Then, maybe smokers and tokers can just sit in prison, puffing away to their hearts’ content.

That sounds preferable to enduring more preaching from the anti-smokers.